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Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus

Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus

Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J Wirkus

Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus

Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus

Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus

Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus

Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay spent two weeks in April fastening 11,759 pennies on a life-size statue of Bucky Badger for the Bucky on Parade public art display in Madison. Her "Lucky Bucky" is outside the Wisconsin State Capitol until Sept. 12.
Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus

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Emily J. Wirkus of Green Bay poses with the "Lucky Bucky" statue she adorned with 11,759 pennies. It's one of 85 life-size statues of the University of Wisconsin mascot on display in Madison through September for a public art project called Bucky on Parade.(Photo: Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus)

Emily J. Wirkus didn’t just see a different side to Bucky Badger this spring, she saw him from every side.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison alum spent two weeks in the garage of her Green Bay duplex transforming the college mascot into a work of art — one penny at a time.

She’s among 64 artists who put their own creative twist on 85 life-sized fiberglass statues of Bucky unveiled this week at locations throughout Madison for Bucky on Parade, a free public art display that runs through Sept. 12.

Determined to make her contribution count, she glued 11,759 pennies on the 6-foot statue. All of them heads up but for a couple of intentional exceptions.

“That’s why he’s called ‘Lucky Bucky,’ because if you find a penny on the ground and it’s heads up, it’s supposed to be lucky,” she said.

It was the man on the penny, President Abraham Lincoln, who initially inspired the idea for her design. He was responsible for signing the Morrill Act into law in 1862, giving states blocks of public land that could be sold in order to fund universities, called land-grant colleges, that would teach agriculture and mechanical arts. It allowed the University of Wisconsin to expand and become what it is today, Wirkus said.

The Bucky on Parade folks liked her idea so much that even though the deadline for applications had passed in November, they had FAST Corporation in Sparta cast another statue in March. That meant she had an accelerated schedule of just two weeks for getting her Bucky done.

Wirkus, who works from Green Bay for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, went to Madison on April 7 to fetch her barenaked Bucky. He’s 6½ feet tall. Not exactly the kind of cargo you can just slip into a Toyota Prius (she rented a cargo van) or, as it turned out, the house.

“The face is so wide he wouldn’t fit through any of our house doors, so I had to do him in the garage. We tried our best,” said Wirkus, who got a hand from her fiance, Mark Norris, a student at the Medical College of Wisconsin-Green Bay. “It was during Snowstorm Evelyn also, so I had to get different glue, because I had to accommodate colder temperatures out in the garage.”

“Lucky Bucky” was the first piece of art Wirkus, a Marshfield native, had tackled since high school. She researched floors and backsplashes made of pennies and used the same technique with a clear silicone-based adhesive that will stand up to both cold and hot days out in the sun.

Friends had offered to give her pennies, but she worked with her credit union. They had some in the vault and ordered the rest. They came in $25 boxes with 50 rolls of 50 cents each, making it easier for Wirkus to keep count of how many she had used.

She glued them on mostly how they came out of the rolls — a mix of years and shininess. Only the occasional one that had turned green from oxidation or was in bad shape got rejected.

Only a handful of coins show the tails side, including one of each Lincoln penny design: wheat (the oldest penny on Bucky), Lincoln Memorial, Union shield and the Lincoln bicentennial that came out in 2009 with four designs of its own. One Canadian penny made the collage too — something for spectators to search for when they visit “Lucky Bucky” at his post outside the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Wirkus cut only one penny, placing a half in each of Bucky’s eyes to give them a little sparkle. Look closely and you’ll also see there’s a small “W” logo on the left side of his chest made with shiny pennies.

Emily J. Wirkus worked from the bottom up of her Bucky Badger statue. It took her two weeks, and some late nights, to cover him in pennies.(Photo: Courtesy of Emily J. Wirkus)

It was tedious work at times. She blew through all six seasons of “MasterChef Junior” on Hulu in the background as she worked. There was at least one day in which she started at 7 a.m. and worked until 1 a.m. the next day. The surface area of a life-size Bucky can’t really be appreciated until you're nose-to-nose with him.

“That first penny I glued on I knew I had to finish it no matter what,” Wirkus said. “ I think it helped that it was such a tight turnaround, because there was no wiggle room to kind of put it off and procrastinate.

“I only melted down once. There were only tears once and that was when we were grouting him, and I say ‘we,’ because my fiancee ended up grouting most of him.”

Wirkus was sure the grouting would go quickly based on online videos she had watched, but Norris, who has done a backsplash or two, cautioned otherwise. The first-year med student pulled his first all-nighter to get it done.

By April 23, they were putting Bucky back in a cargo van on his way to Madison, but something happened during his two weeks in Green Bay: He put on some serious weight. All those pennies — heavier ones from before 1982 made of all copper and the lighter copper-plated ones since — added another 50 to 70 pounds to his already stocky 118-pound frame.

Even the UW wrestlers who moved all the completed statues to the fieldhouse for a Bucky on Parade preview event confessed they had to recruit another guy to haul “Lucky Bucky.”

Wirkus was in Madison on Monday with her mom to unveil her Bucky and talk with spectators. She felt a little like a mom herself when it was time to say goodbye. She checked him one last time for any loose pennies before she drove off.

“I had a really hard time leaving him there. It’s kind of like your baby. It’s your project,” she said. “... You make this connection with this inanimate object.”

She can't help worry a little about his well-being, particularly after one of the other Bucky statues was found this week face-down in shallow water of a nearby lake. She hopes his post outside the Capitol is a secure location, and should he suffer any damage, she has all the supplies at the ready to make repairs.

Lucky for Bucky, her work often takes her to Madison for training.

“Every time I have to go to Madison I’ll probably check on him," she said. "Make sure he's OK."

Catch Bucky on Parade

The 85 life-size Bucky Badger statues are on display at locations throughout Madison and Dane County until Sept. 12. You can see all of them at buckyonparade.com and find a map as well.